Her True Face

Her True Face Janice Eidus My sister answers her door in a short, pale pink nightgown with lacy friUs at the neck and hem, the kind of nightgown that HoUywood femme fatales like Marilyn Monroe and Kim Novak wore in the 50s. Even though it's the early 70s, Alice stiU idolizes those sultry blonde bombsheUs; her need to be seductive is as much a part ofher as her narrow, straight nose and her yellow-flecked, hazel eyes. Right now her shoulder-length hair, the color offine sand, is messy and tangled, which isn't surprising, since it's the middle of the night and she'd been asleep when I called her moments earlier from a pay phone on the street. As she lets me in, her cool expression detracts from the sensual picture she otherwise presents. This is the first time I've been inside her new apartment. A few months ago, she separated from her husband, an angry Polish "Op" artist whom she'd married three years before when she was twenty, the age I am now. She moved into this Upper West Side apartment with exposed brick walls and a fireplace, only a few blocks from where I've been living with Louis. I'd met Louis the year before in the student lounge at City CoUege. I feU hard for his exotic Latin American looks. He feU equaUy hard for my "Jewish hippie beauty," as he put it. I knew that he was hot tempered, but I wasn't prepared for what has happened this evening, for the way he hit me repeatedly, accusing me of being with other men. Fleeing from his blows into the deserted street, I caUedAlice from a pay phone. "Louis beat me up," I said, my voice trembling, "and I'd like to stay with you for a few days." "Okay" was all she said. Now she shows me into her spare bedroom, closing the door behind her without having asked a single question or offering a single word of solace. I teU myselfthat it doesn't matter; aU that matters is that she's taken me into 89 90Fourth Genre her home. In my blue jeans and flannel shirt, I faU asleep on the double bed that she's covered with a bedspread as pink and friUy as her nightgown. In the morning when I awaken, I'm startled to find her at her dining room table serving breakfast to Mariusz, her estranged husband. Although his being there makes absolutely no sense to me, I politely say heUo. Gulping down his eggs, Mariusz barely acknowledges me as I join them at the table. Alice, stfll in her nightgown, is smoking a cigarette in what I've heard her describe as her "signature style": rapid puffing, then deep, dramatic inhalation into her nose. She, like Mariusz, pays no attention to me as I pour myself a cup of coffee. She smokes, puff, puff, inhale, while he takes one loud, final slurp of coffee, smooths his bowl-shaped hair, and rises from the table. I'm feeling increasingly uncomfortable as Alice foUows him to the front door where they whisper together. As soon as he's gone, she returns to the kitchen. "I want you out ofhere," she says loudly, standing over me. "I caUed Mariusz last night while you were sleeping and asked him to come over, and we've decided to get back together." In her diaphanous nightgown, her cigarette emitting a lacy trail ofsmoke, she's the epitome ofa '50s glamour queen. "We believe," she goes on, "that you deserved what Louis did to you.You must have provoked him the way you provoke everyone. Now get out!" Within minutes, I'm on the street again, feeling doubly betrayed, doubly abandoned, unsure where to go. I refuse to go back to Louis, and my parents are far away in theVirgin Islands where for the past year my father has been managing a chain of pharmacies since his own pharmacy in the West Bronx went bankrupt. In desperation, I caU my old high school friend Daisy, who lives downtown in SoHo. I haven't seen her since soon after...